Distraction vs Cosiness

The paper presents an attempt to understand the phenomenon of digital homelessness. The starting point of the argument is Shoshana Zuboff’s thesis that under the conditions of surveillance capitalism people are deprived of their homes in the sense that their entire existence (including the inner world) is subject to digitization. The goal of this digitization is to establish complete control over our behavior, in which both capitalist corporations and governments may be interested. Of particular interest in Zuboff’s concept, according to the author, is the obsessive use of military metaphors — she constantly emphasizes the similarities between the activities of “surveillance capitalists” and conquerors (for example, conquistadors). This allows to draw an analogy with the interpretation of war in the works of Ernst Jünger (e.g. The Worker, Total Mobilization, etc.). Without disputing the need to criticize the strategy of “surveillance capitalists,” the author questions the inevitability of turning to the image of war as an expression of the utmost existential seriousness, that is, concentration that mobilizes all the abilities of the subject to achieve truly significant goals. Based on the criticism expressed by Walter Benjamin against Jünger, it is shown that perhaps just the opposite — not concentration, but rather distraction could serve as the most reasonable form of existence in the situation of radical “uncosiness” generated by capitalist digitalization

Cognitive psychology · Distraction · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Computer Science · ICT in Developing Communities · Psychology